Android Cupcake, Donut, Eclair and Beyond…
| by Rob Jackson on May 12th, 2009 |
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The legend of Cupcake… how it go so ridiculously popular I am not sure. But the Android loving masses wanted a touchscreen keyboard and when the name “Cupcake” surfaced, people never took their eyes off it. They wanted it. They needed it. But now they are going to Homer Simpson it.
The next dev branch of Android is called Donut.
Right now, Donut is identical to Cupcake and will be developed over time, mostly by Google but they are accepting submissions/updates/features from developers. We learn this from a discussion on Google Groups from April 26th:
branches with codenames (i.e. cupcake, donut), as well as the master branch, are evolving, they’re not frozen like tags.
There are tags for android-1.0, android-sdk-1.5-pre and android-1.5, which aren’t evolving.
Donut is the codename for the project that immediately follows cupcake (you can figure out the ordering by realizing that the codenames are in alphabetical order).
At this point, indeed, the code in donut is identical to that in cupcake. The focus has been primarily on cupcake, and while donut is ready to receive changes it hasn’t had any yet.
See that note about “Alphabetical Order”? We thought it would be fun to predict the possible names of the development branches for E through Z. My list is below, feel free to make your own suggestions in the comments!
- Eclair
- Frosting
- Gelato
- Honey
- Icing
- Jelly (Unfortunately, Jell-O is a brand name)
- Kiwi
- Lemon
- Marshmellow
- Noodle (Nerds would be hilarious)
- Orange (Oreo would be better!)
- Pudding
- Quince (White men can’t jump / Jeopardy!)
- RockyRoad (uhoh, bad foreshadowing!)
- Sundae
- Taffee (Twinkee!)
- UDC (upside-down-cake)
- Vanilla
- Waffle
- Xmas Cookies?
- Yogurt
- Zebra Cake
As you can see I stuck with the dessert-ish theme but I suppose you could go in a more general “food” direction or even take it elsewhere. The Android dev branch naming pattern is like that of hurricanes every year… and both are on a path to destroy anything that comes in its way!
As for actual “practical” knowledge, Jean-Baptiste Queru imparts that upon us yet again in another thread on Google Groups:
Here’s the current situation:
-in each “code” repository:
- release-1.0 is the branch for 1.0 as it was originally released. It should be considered read-only (i.e. we don’t normally accept submissions into it).
- cdma-import is the branch that was used by Teleca (a member of OHA) to work on CDMA support in Android. read-only.
- cupcake is the branch that follows the cupcake source tree that exists inside Google. it’s read-only.
- donut is the branch for the first named project after cupcake. It’s still in the process of being set up. At the moment it’s still identical to cupcake. We might accept limited contributions into it at some point in the future (as we transition away from the model that we used for cupcake).master is the branch for all projects after donut. We accept contributions into it.
- android-1.0 tags the original 1.0 code drop.
- android-sdk-1.5-pre tags the 1.5 preview SDK. It’s the open-source part of the exact source that was used to build the SDK, so it can be used e.g. to match stack traces
- android-1.5 tags the official 1.5 release of the Android Open-Source Project. It’s the one that should be used by people porting Android 1.5 to devices.
-within the “manifest” repository:
- there are the same branches as in the “code” repositories, which point to the matching branches in all the code repositories.
- there are branches for android-1.5 and android-sdk-1.5-pre, which point to the matching tags in all the code repositories (those have to be branches as an artifact of the way repo currently works).
- there are the same tags as in the “code” repositories.
So there you have it… a little more information on the Donut, the naming pattern, and some fun guesses at the future dev branches! The question is, if Google has an oversized statue of each dev branch made, will the Google Campus start to look pervertedly similar to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch?
1. Michael Martin wrote on May 12, 2009
Eclair is ALREADY confirmed as the next release after Donut.
After that my guess is FRIED DOUGH
,Michael Martin
Google And Blog
2. Tekphreak wrote on May 12, 2009
After Eclair, My Guess is Fritter!
3. papadew wrote on May 12, 2009
really its great to know whats next… but can I please have a bite of cupcake now… I have been a good boy
4. James O wrote on May 12, 2009
Eclair, Fudgecake, GooeyChocolatePudding, HoneyRoastParsnips, IceCream, Jelly, KinderSurprise, LactoseFreeMilkSubstituteShake, Meat, Nougat, OohLookSomeLovelyCakes, Plum, QuornCake, RareSteak, Sugar, TomatoJuice, UgliFruit, VeryNiceCake, WalnutAndDateCake, XRayOfACake, YummyCake, ZucchiniCake
5. Grant wrote on May 12, 2009
Yeah no joke. Lets stick to baked goods.
6. Bflame7 wrote on May 12, 2009
after eclair then maybe fudge would be a good name
7. Bad Johnie wrote on May 12, 2009
They’ve already deviated from “baked” goods as donuts are normally fried, not baked.
8. Andy wrote on May 12, 2009
Pork bone and Puha
9. Herbert wrote on May 12, 2009
Fudge would be a hilarious codename.
Does anybody know what A and B were?
10. Romain Guy wrote on May 12, 2009
A and B were named after robots (you know, Android…). The only deviation was Petit-Four (known by US end users as the RC33), named so because it was supposed to be a small update.
11. Maj wrote on May 12, 2009
any word on what we’re going to get in this “donut” ?!!
12. Justin2 wrote on May 12, 2009
@Bad Johnie: I think their naming scheme isn’t so much baked goods, as is pastries in whole.
@Maj: They already said that, at the moment, Donut is exactly the same as cupcake, as far as code and features go. When cupcake is out to everyone, they are going to start brainstorming for new features, and if you’re a dev, they will be taking input from the community, and possibly even putting in user generated code and ideas. So what it seems like is; in the near future, (sooner than we thought) Android is going to be run like a Linux distro. Meaning what goes into the code and the updates come more from the ideas and mandates of the masses, not from watery tarts distributing swords… I mean the proprietary code banks of the Win/Mac coders and suits who think they have a good idea on what people want, when they have no honest to god clue.
As far as them keeping up with said scheme, it would be awesome, and google certainly has the corporate size and pull to not give in to anyone saying it is childish and unprofessional. But part of me thinks that once the next iteration of the Android oS comes out , we’ll lose the update naming scheme in favor of something else. Kind of like what Windows and Mac have been doing. Who knows, maybe they’ll call that one Cyborg, and it will have different main dishes for the updates; I.E. Brisket, Chowder, Deviled Ham, etc.
13. Justin M. wrote on May 12, 2009
Eclair, Frap, Hummus
14. DEEZNUTZ wrote on May 12, 2009
What they should call it is… “Were gonna take a long a** time putting this update together, delay it for months and then slowly roll it out”
Yea…. that sounds right to me =)
15. agoes wrote on May 12, 2009
meat ball please !!
16. Filbert wrote on May 15, 2009
Ha, I like Petit Four, which is also a baked good/pastry. Literally it means small oven in French and refers to a type of cookie… suitable for a minor release, me thinks.
17. B2tHeRad wrote on May 19, 2009
Yeah, I want to see Twinkie but I think it is copy-written…
18. Google Is The New Oprah, Donut, ADC2 & More at Google IO! | Android Phone Fans wrote on May 27, 2009
[...] he talked about Android Donut, the development branch following in the footsteps of Cupcake. And then… I’m not sure [...]
19. 2lee wrote on May 28, 2009
When can I get my cupcake…. I’m fiening for some right now!!
20. yousuck wrote on July 13, 2009
hey jerks, layoff the MJ jokes assholes.
21. Maxi wrote on September 8, 2009
Eclair (is fixxed)
Flan (is fixxed)
Maybe:
Loaf
Muffin
Pancake/Pastry/Pie/Pudding
Tartlet
Waffle
22. hector wrote on October 1, 2009
I agree Eclair, Flan, then maybe, Wafers or Strudel
23. John wrote on October 25, 2009
TwoGirlsOneCupcake
24. Frank Futter wrote on November 6, 2009
After F… which i can’t come up wiht a creative name, G has to be Gumdrop.
25. Bob wrote on December 8, 2009
Nussecke
Bienenstich
26. kushhy wrote on December 23, 2009
Well seeing as eclair has been out for a few months now, As you may already know Flan is next, followed by ginger bread, followed by honey… not sure what comes with the letter I but i know J will be jello, and thats all that is known as of now.
27. 123 wrote on January 11, 2010
Michael Martin seems to have an inside track. Nine months later and it sure looks like the whole project is turning into lots of Fried Dough!
28. Joey S wrote on January 17, 2010
F is officially going to be Froyo, for frozen yogurt